Whatever Happened To Danny Torrance Actor Danny Lloyd From The Shining?

There have been a lot of creepy kids in the history of horror, but the murdered hallway twins and young psychic Danny Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” are easily among the best. The twins were played by Lisa and Louise Burns, who were 12 years old at the time of filming, while Danny was played by six-year-old Danny Lloyd. Since “The Shining,” based on the 1977 Stephen King novel of the same name, has become one of the most famous horror films of all time, both the twins and Danny have become horror legends, but what about the child actors who played them? 

The Burns twins didn’t end up having much of a career in acting, though Louise did apply to London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and was turned away because her role in “The Shining” made her a professional and thus technically overqualified. She became a scientist, while her sister became a lawyer, so it sounds like they were pretty successful in their post-acting lives. They had a relatively small part to play in the movie, however, whereas Danny was one of the main characters and even ended up as the primary protagonist of King’s follow-up novel (and its movie adaptation), “Doctor Sleep.” What happened to the little boy with the big eyes and talent for a creepy, croaking voice, and where did he go after filming “The Shining”?

After “The Shining,” it seemed like Lloyd disappeared off of the face of the earth, but the truth of the matter was that he simply quit acting around age 13 and decided to “lay low and live a normal life,” as he told The Guardian in 2017. He had fond memories of the film and said it was a “good experience,” in large part because he was explicitly shielded from the horror and violence in the movie and didn’t see the full film until five years after it released. (Honestly, 11 is probably a bit young to see “The Shining,” too, but it’s also different when you’re the star of the movie.) 

Lloyd had never really set out to be an actor, relating that his father saw a casting call in the newspaper that said “no previous acting experience necessary” and sent off his son’s name as a bit of a joke, not realizing that Lloyd was exactly what Kubrick was looking for. Like the Burns twins, Lloyd tried to make a go of acting for a little while, though he similarly wasn’t able to use the success of “The Shining” to launch a career of child stardom. Instead, he worked on farms to put himself through college and ended up as a biology professor at a community college in Kentucky. That isn’t entirely the end of his part in “The Shining,” however, as he also had a small cameo in Mike Flanagan’s sequel film, “Doctor Sleep.” 

Though the adult Danny Torrance is played by Ewan McGregor in “Doctor Sleep,” Lloyd did get a chance to appear in the “Shining” sequel. “Doctor Sleep” is a great blend of both Stephen King’s novels and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of “The Shining,” so it makes perfect sense for Lloyd to be there in some way. According to Variety, Flanagan reached out to Lloyd directly via direct message on Twitter and asked him if he would like a cameo in the movie, and Lloyd jumped at the chance. 

He doesn’t look much like the frightened little boy from “The Shining,” but you can see Lloyd in “Doctor Sleep” at the baseball game where the film’s energy vampires are stalking their latest prey. He plays a baseball dad commenting on the game in a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, but it’s cool to see him looking happy and healthy and decidedly not possessed by ghosts or the voice of Tony. 

It’s pretty common for child stars to go on to have totally normal jobs as adults, but could you imagine finding out that your biology professor was the little boy from “The Shining”? Now that’s terrifying.